Image Prompting Vs. Style Reference - Midjourney

mid Journey recently released a new feature called style reference and I got some comments wondering what the real difference was between this and image prompting so I'm going to try to explain this in three different ways I'm not sure which one is going to make the most sense to you but I hope one of them clicks I'll start with a math metaphor maybe this is an analogy image prompting is like addition this plus this equals that a picture a reference image plus some words in our prompt is going to equal the generation let me show you this example the baby blue Memphis pattern I love this picture and I'm going to show you what it looks like when we use this as an image prompt first of all how to do it you're going to write what you want to see in your prompt a dog if your picture is already on Discord you can simply click on it and drag it down into your prompt when you hit enter this big long link will shorten and it will look something like this do you see that sort of addition come through we have our picture that Memphis pattern background plus a dog is equal to this I think you can see both halves of the formula pretty easily it's even more apparent when we prompt for something like a day at the beach this is literally taking a picture of a day at the beach plus our image prompt this is what image prompting looks like it's much more like addition one more example that might help you out is when you get a little more detailed with your prompt a man wearing a red jacket and gold shoes Okay the red jacket didn't necessarily come through except in number three but the same idea applies image prompt plus your words is equal to your final result so image prompting is like addition however style reference is much more like multiplication your image multiplied by your subject is equal to your generation here is the dog example notice how that pattern isn't exactly like the reference image it's just in the same style but this might be the best example of what I'm trying to explain a day at the beach look at this you don't really see a day at the beach and you don't really see the reference image you simply see a combination of the two I think number two is absolutely amazing and then we have a man wearing a red jacket and gold shoes same sort of idea the style gets transferred through and the subject gets Blended together with it image prompting cares deeply about the entire picture literally what is inside of it while style reference sees through the subject it sees through the color it sees the bigger picture like how it was made and if you're new here my name is Nolan it's my goal to make learning AI as straightforward as possible if you've learned something new so far consider leaving a like on this video so we can share it with more people I need your help with that thanks okay the second analogy that might help you understand it a little better is related to cooking image prompting is like making a sandwich peanut butter plus jelly is equal to a PB&J sandwich we're going to use this pile of Lego bricks as our image prompt and when we image prompt it with something like a dragon we liter literally get the peanut butter and the jelly in one we have a dragon on top of those Lego bricks now that might be what you're looking for but style reference is much more like making a smoothie same image reference and we get these no real sign of Lego bricks but the essence of it the color is still there and it maintains that style like a toy figurine but if that wasn't good enough for you you could add something more to the prom like a dragon made of Lego style reference that picture and you get these where now we're starting to see that blend come together a little more conversely if you image prompted that a dragon made of Lego we get that same sort of Sandwich scenario where sure we have a dragon made of Lego but it's on top of our original image is that making a little bit of sense I have one more way of explaining it but I also have one more example with regards to cooking let's take a look at this the wide angle full view product photo of a futuristic stylish yellow raincoat unsplash the point is I just wanted a specific fashiony look for a raincoat if we were to image prompt this into a yellow couch this is what we get that whole character comes through with the image prompt it really is like addition and it really is like making a sandwich your image prompt plus your prompt is equal to your generation and style reference is much more like multiplication much more like making a smoothie our reference image plus the couch is equal to this that's pretty cool and it's even the same idea for a medieval armor set here it is for an image prompt and you can see the character you can see the yellow raincoat underneath the medieval armor cool picture sure but you might be looking for more of a blend and that's where you get something like these with the style reference this is like some daff punk imagery those are amazing I love that look a lot and the final way I can explain the difference between image prompting and style reference is relating it to writing a story image prompting is much more like writing about a specific character we are going to use Batman as our example and I generated a picture of a Batman action fight scene graphic novel comic book page maybe the words were a little redundant but I love the outcome now when we use that as an image prompt along with the words Ninja Turtle fight scene we get these and I'll be honest these turned out way better than I thought I mean number one is pretty cool but you can see in number two they sort of have these Batman ears number three maybe he's got a bit of a Batman cape on and number four that's just straight up Batman image prompting focuses on the character of the story that you're writing we image prompted Batman so we get Batman in the results whereas style reference is much more about being inspired by the vibe or the genre of the story like take a look at these oh my I just got more Goosebumps Ninja Turtle fight scene look how good these are man oh my go I can't believe it that's the real difference between image prompting and style reference style reference does not care about who was in my original image it only cares about what that image brought to life and in this case it's that black and white manga inspired visuals so cool oh I can't get enough of this and if that look wasn't enough for you you can use the parameter D- ssw that stands for style weight and then a number between 0 and 1,000 this determines how much influence that reference image has on your generation at 1,000 you can get something like these super beautiful and way more in tune with that parent image I hope that gave you some clarity on when you should use both of these options and I know the prompts in this video were pretty simple so if you want more information on how you can EXP ban your prompts you should check out this video here I hope you're doing well take care and I'll see you next time peace

Channel: Future Tech Pilot

Views: 16,722

Keywords: midjourney ai, midjourney, ai art, midjourney tutorial, midjourney tutorial for beginners, midjourney tutorial prompts, midjourney prompt help, midjourney tricks, midjourney tips, midjourney image prompt, midjourney style reference, midjourney --iw, midjourney style ref, midjourney --sref

Id: XCDiul7Ln2s

Length: 6min 36sec (396 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 05 2024